1.
On Sunday, August 16, 1936, under
the headline, "Fans Ask End of Jim Crow Baseball,"
the Sunday Worker pronounced: "Jim Crow baseball
must end." Thus began the Communist Party newspaper's campaign
to end discrimination in the national pastime.1 The unbylined story, written by sports editor
Lester Rodney, questioned the fairness of segregated baseball.
Rodney believed that black ballplayers from the Negro Leagues
would improve the quality of play in the major leagues. He appealed
to readers to demand that the national pastime -- particularly
team owners, or "magnates" as the newspaper called
them -- admit black ballplayers: "Fans, it's up to you!
Tell the big league magnates that you're sick of the poor pitching
in the American League." "Big league ball is on the
downgrade, "Rodney declared, "You pay the high prices.
Demand better ball. Demand Americanism in baseball, equal opportunities
for Negro and white stars."2

2. Over the next decade, the DailyWorker brashly challenged the baseball establishment to
permit black players; condemned white owners and managers for
perpetuating the color ban; organized petition drives and distributed
anti-discrimination pamphlets outside ballparks; and criticized
the mainstream press for ignoring the race issue. The CP forced
the issue in front of the baseball establishment, raised awareness
about the color line among social progressives, and lobbied local
and state politicians in New York. As Rodney explained: "We
were the only non-black newspaper writing about it for a long
time."3

3. In recent years, scholars have focused
more and more on the role of the press in covering the integration
of baseball -- one of the most influential civil rights stories
in the years succeeding World War II.4For example, Chris Lamb and Glen Bleske assert
that in news accounts, equality on the baseball field became
a metaphor for equality in civil rights.5

4. For black journalists and their readers,
the story symbolized the hopes for and the dreams of true integration.
Black sportswriters and their newspapers recognized and reported
this critical juncture in the story of baseball and the fight
for civil rights.6 No group had a greater responsibility
as an organ of racial unity during and after World War II than
the black press -- and "the extent to which it understood
and met its responsibility," Bill Weaver wrote, "can
be observed in its handling of the assault on professional baseball's
'color line.'"7 By contrast, white sportswriters, working
for mainstream dailies, maintained a "conspiracy of silence"
on the color line, either afraid of upsetting their editors and
readers or convinced of the need for segregation on personal
grounds.

5. As part of an overall neglect of the
legacy of leftist politics in the United States, however, little
has been said about the Worker's crusade to end segregated
baseball. A few writers noted that the Communists seized upon
the issue of racial discrimination in baseball and for years
campaigned to end the color line.8 Two Worker sportswriters -- Rodney
and Bill Mardo -- told a conference commemorating the 50th
anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking major league baseball's
color line that the newspaper stood up against racism in the
national pastime. According to Rodney, the Worker was
the "conscience of journalism."9

6. In his autobiography, civil rights activist
William L. Patterson said that Rodney and the Worker "were
second to no other voices in the United States in the fight to
get Negroes on the rosters of Big League baseball clubs."10
David Falkner, in his biography of Jackie Robinson, also recognized
Rodney's contributions. "I think Lester Rodney is one of
the unsung heroes of the effort to integrate baseball,"
he said, "Rodney and the Worker were at this all
the way through the 1930s, and they never really let up."11

7. While there is agreement that the Worker
played an active role in breaking baseball's color line, there
has thus far been little attempt to identify what exactly the
newspaper did. A more thorough analysis is needed if we hope
to understand -- and to recognize -- what Mardo describes as
"The DailyWorker['] 10-year campaign to break
down Jim Crow baseball."12 Besides writing hundreds of articles
and columns over a decade, its sportswriters directly challenged
the baseball establishment, questioning league and team executives
in print and directly confronting owners, demanding that they
give tryouts to black players. In short, the newspaper bluntly
pointed out that the most American of sports was undemocratic.
And it chastised league executives and team owners for
praising the game as an embodiment of the American dream while
denying opportunities to black players through outright discrimination.

8. The newspaper's sarcastic and even belligerent
actions offended not just baseball's establishment but also many
who supported integration, including many black sportswriters.
These sportswriters may have agreed with the Communists
but shunned their support for fear of being red-baited -- a tactic
used by Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and team
owners, who dismissed the Worker's campaign to integrate
baseball as a Communist ploy.

9. The Worker, the main organ for
the Communist Party, was truly an alternative press -- representing
workers and not corporations. Whereas other editors, reporters,
and columnists could not easily criticize the rich who controlled
the press, the Worker had no such restrictions. It was
not supported by advertising but by, in its own words, "the
nickels, dimes and dollars of the men and women of labor."13
There was no other daily like it in America. Unlike other dailies,
it was supported by membership dues -- not advertising. In addition,
its content was different from other daily newspapers. Ignoring
the journalistic concept of objectivity, the Worker presented
white, communist sympathizers an opportunity to rage at injustices
against blacks. Its circulation, which included foreign-language
editions, peaked at about 140,000 in the 1930s and then
after World War II -- not coincidentally, this period coincided
with the Worker's campaign against baseball's color line.14

10. The Communist Party seized upon the
issue of segregation in baseball because it represented one of
the more obvious evidences of discrimination.15 The Worker's journalists
understood that ending discrimination in baseball could make
a truly revolutionary change in American society. While the CP
was certainly interested in using sports to advance its own political
philosophy, its most effective effort to influence American
society -- the campaign against segregation in baseball -- emphasized
democracy, not communism.16 In addition, baseball, to the CP, represented
all that was wrong with American capitalism.

11. As early as 1933, the Worker's
Ben Field commented on the injustice of racial segregation in
major league baseball, describing a scene at a Brooklyn Dodgers'
game at Ebbets Field, where blacks worked at the stadium but
none took the field. "You spot a few Negro fans. Negro workers
make good athletes. But where are the Negroes on the field?"
Field asked. "The big leagues will not admit Negro players.
This is something else to chalk up against capitalist-controlled
sports."17

12. However, the integration of baseball would
not become a significant issue in the Worker until the
introduction of a daily sports page in 1936. As with virtually
all party matters, the decision to focus on baseball's racial
problem had its origin in international party politics. In 1935,
the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International encouraged
the American Communist Party to focus attention on the subject
of capitalist sports in order to become more popular in American
society. Communist Party sportswriters placed the U.S.
professional sports establishment within the framework of capitalist
exploitation, declaring that professional athletes, too, were
workers, who labored but did not receive a fair share of the
fruits of their labor.18

13. In essence, the Worker's campaign
to desegregate baseball posited three arguments. First, blacks
had proven their worthiness to participate in American professional
sports through their success in the recently completed Summer
Olympics in Berlin. Adolf Hitler's snubbing of Jesse Owens, the
black track star who had won four gold medals, provided the CP
a clarion call for their campaign against discrimination in sports
in general and baseball in particular. Secondly, the CP staunchly
opposed racism, whether perpetuated by Nazi Germany or the United
States. "There is not much difference between the Hitler
who, like the coward he is, runs away before he will shake Jesse
Owens' hand and the American coward, who won't give the same
Negro equal rights, equal pay, and equal opportunities,"
the Worker editorialized.19 And thirdly, the newspaper's sportswriters
argued that the addition of blacks would improve the level of
competition in the big leagues. In short, discrimination did
not merely prohibit blacks from organized baseball but also detracted
from the overall quality of play.20Worker sportswriters frequently
denigrated the caliber of play in the major leagues while praising
the talents of Negro League stars. The solution was obvious:
let blacks play in the majors.

14. In August 1936, Rodney, then 25, became
the newspaper's sports editor and he would stay with the paper
until 1956 -- except for a stint in the Army during World War
II.21
When he was made sports editor, he acquired a forum to advance
his ideals of racial equality and the true meaning of democracy
in American sports. Rodney helped to further legitimize sports
as a social concern, and purposely gave a voice to the opinions
of athletes formerly considered to be stupid and shallow.22

15. Rodney quickly realized that the story
of baseball's color line was The DailyWorker's
and theirs alone -- by default. "It was wide open. No one
was covering it," he said.23 Rodney, having grown up a Brooklyn Dodgers'
fan, understood the significance of baseball to the American
psyche. Thus separate leagues for white and black ballplayers
were not just unfair or unsportsmanlike, but were un-American.
"American sportsmanship can no more be denied than American
democracy," he said. "They go together and grow together."24

16. Once Rodney and the Worker took
on the issue of discrimination in major league baseball, they
did not let up. Picking through decades-old Jim Crow rhetoric
to expose the unfounded fears and gross stereotypes underlying
the prohibition on signing blacks, the Worker's sportswriters
gained early rhetorical victories.25 On August 23, the newspaper published
a statement from National League president Ford Frick who said
there was no formal ban that prohibited major league teams from
signing black ballplayers. "Beyond the fundamental requirement
that a major league player must have unique ability and good
character and habits," Frick said, "I do not recall
one instance where baseball has allowed either race, creed or
color to enter into the question of the selection of its players."26
To the Worker, Frick's statement was absurd. According
to the newspaper, if character were an issue, then a number of
white big leaguers also should be excluded from baseball.
The rosters of big league teams, after all, were filled with
brawlers, drunkards, and bigots. If ability were a determining
condition, then a number of blacks should be in the big leagues.
The newspaper periodically mocked the baseball executive, asking:
If there was no ban, why were there no blacks in the big leagues?27

17. Worker sportswriters also wrote
often about the talented stars of the Negro Leagues and urged
readers to attend black baseball games to see for themselves
what the color line was denying them. The newspaper also informed
its readers of the history of the Negro Leagues and how major
league managers, such as John McGraw of the New York Giants,
had praised the talents of its stars and how McGraw himself had
tried to sign a black player, Charlie Grant, in the early 1900s.
From these stories, readers learned about the undiscovered world
of black baseball.28

18. In his interview, Frick cautioned
that the responsibility to sign black players lay with the team
owners, not the game itself. In January 1937, sportswriter Mike
Kantor quoted Brooklyn Dodgers' president Steven McKeever as
saying he would like to sign blacks but such a decision would
have to come from his manager, Burleigh Grimes. Grimes, in turn,
said such a decision would have to come from Frick.29 To the Worker, if there were not
a gentlemen's agreement prohibiting blacks, there was certainly
a conspiracy whereby no one -- not Frick, McKeever, or Grimes
-- would take responsibility.

19. Rodney remembers an interview with
Grimes, who admitted he had been impressed with black players
during off-season barnstorming games. "How would you feel
about putting a Dodger uniform on Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson?"
Rodney asked. The question made Grimes uncomfortable. "You're
wasting your time," he answered. "That'll never happen
as long as there are segregated trains and restaurants."
Rodney then said, "Can I say how good you think these players
are?" "No, no," Grimes answered. "He didn't
want to stick his head out," Rodney said.30

20. The Worker, however, found a number
of managers and players willing to go on record praising black
players and even supporting integration, such as New York Yankee
outfielder Joe Dimaggio, St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Dizzy Dean,
retired Washington Senators pitcher Walter Johnson, and managers
Leo Durocher and Bill McKechnie. During September 1937, DiMaggio
told Rodney about his off-season barnstorming games against Paige:
"Satchel Paige is the greatest pitcher I ever batted against."31
Other white sportswriters heard DiMaggio's comment but did not
print it. "I wasn't the only one he mentioned it to,"
Rodney recalled, "I was the only one who printed it."32

21. At the end of 1937, the Worker
reported that by having Frick admit there was no color
ban and by quoting Dimaggio's comment about Paige, it had
forced other newspapers to take up the issue and had helped make
the country aware of discrimination in the national pastime;
integration was, therefore, imminent.33 Unfortunately, the Worker's optimism
was unfounded. As was often the case, the Worker exaggerated
the impact of its campaign. Few newspapers ever mentioned the
color line -- and those that did, like the New York DailyNews and DailyMirror, did not do so because
they felt pressured by the Worker.

22. Worker sportswriters often reported
that they were not alone in the belief that black stars belonged
in the major leagues. Whenever possible, the newspaper published
pro-integration columns from mainstream sportswriters such as
Hugh Bradley of the New York Post, Dan Parker of the DailyMirror, and Jimmy Powers of the DailyNews,
who Rodney called "the most articulate and consistent supporter
of the Negro stars since the campaign to end Jim Crow baseball
began to catch hold."34 However, the Worker's joy at reading
such articles in other newspapers was tempered somewhat by their
infrequency.35 In fact, the Worker -- as Bill
Mills did on April 20, 1938 -- was far more likely to scold sportswriters
for not putting more pressure on the national pastime.36 In contrast, there was nothing half-hearted
about the Worker's campaign to end segregated baseball.
In 1937, it published more than 50 articles on the issue; in
1938, nearly a hundred.37

23. But the Worker did not restrict
itself to columns and articles. In February 1937, it reported
the addition of other organizations in the fight to end Jim Crow
in baseball. One article noted that the Communist-run Negro National
Congress' Brooklyn branch sent a petition to the Dodgers to sign
Paige.38
A week later, it reported that another Communist group, the Youth
Council of the Vanguard Community, had written a letter to Grimes
also suggesting that he sign Paige: "We think such an addition
to the team would be in the best tradition of Americanism, because
it would be a defeat for race prejudice."39

24. In 1938, the Worker, in conjunction
with the Young Communist League, began to promote grass-roots
support of the campaign. Beginning in 1939 and continuing until
baseball was integrated, anti-discrimination pamphlets were distributed
and petitions were circulated for signatures outside major league
ballparks in New York City. The petitions were then sent to Baseball
Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, National League president
Ford Frick and American League president William Harridge. The
CP attempted to shame baseball into ending segregation through
petitions that read, in part: "Our country guarantees the
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all,
regardless of race, creed, or color. Yet in our national sport
we find discrimination against outstanding Negro baseball players
who are equal to or surpass in skill many of the present players
in the National and American League." Tens of thousands
of signatures went seemingly ignored by the baseball establishment.40

25. While baseball had thus far been able
to turn a deaf ear to criticism of its color ban, it could neither
dismiss nor deny the outcry over a racist remark made by a New
York Yankee outfielder during a radio interview in late July
1938. After Jake Powell told a Chicago broadcaster that, in the
offseason he was a policeman in Dayton, Ohio, he was asked how
he kept in shape. "By cracking niggers over the head with
my nightstick," Powell replied.41 Commissioner Landis suspended Powell
for ten days, yet Landis and team owners had wielded their own
sticks by prohibiting blacks from the big leagues for a half-century.
This hypocrisy was not lost on Rodney, who called on the baseball
establishment to suspend themselves.42 Rodney predicted -- incorrectly of course
-- that the "recent Jake Powell rumpus" would force
Landis and team owners to end discrimination in major league
baseball.43

26. "L'Affaire Jake Powell,"
as the Nation called it, provided an opportunity for critics
of the color line -- particularly Communist and black sportswriters
-- to channel their collective and longstanding indignation at
a single act of racism that represented the laws and customs
of the country.44 William Rogosin suggested that not only
did the incident solidify the sense of outrage against baseball's
color line, it illustrated the instability of segregated baseball,
where a single intemperate remark embroiled the sport in controversy.45
Until the signing of Robinson in October 1945, nothing brought
together Communist and black sportswriters like Jake Powell.

27. Although black sportswriters may have
had the same goal as the Communists, they did not want the Communists'
cooperation. At least one sportswriter, Sam Lacy, who worked
for the Chicago Defender and the Baltimore Afro-American,
did not want to have anything to do with the CP -- or communism
for that matter. "From the beginning, he would have nothing
to do with the Daily Worker," Rodney said. "I
don't want to get mixed up with that."46

28. Pittsburgh Courier sports editor
Wendell Smith, who with Lacy comprised the two most influential
black sportswriters of 1930s and 1940s, initially had a working
relationship with Rodney. According to Rodney, the Worker
and Courier had an arrangement to print one another's
articles. In August 1939, Smith wrote Rodney a letter, praising
his contributions.47 Rodney printed the letter, letting his
readers know that the Worker's efforts were being recognized
in the Courier, which had the largest circulation of any
black newspaper. By publishing the letter, the Worker
could demonstrate that the Communist Party was winning
acceptance in the black community.48

29. But Smith changed his mind when he
began working with Brooklyn Dodgers' president Branch Rickey,
an anti-Communist who denounced communism for interfering with
baseball. Smith, himself, later wrote: "The Communists did
more to delay the entrance of Negroes in big league baseball
than any other single factor."49 Stung by the criticism, Rodney wrote
Smith, reminding him of the letter he had written several years
earlier and saying if he criticized the Communists again, the
Worker would reprint the letter. Smith did not repeat
the criticism.

30. Black sportswriters generally steered
away from direct confrontation with the white baseball establishment,
conscious of the dangers of speaking their minds in Jim Crow
America. Smith and Lacy, in particular, believed that they could
best achieve their objective if they cautiously approached team
executives. Their influence was limited largely to the black
community because their columns were read only by blacks. In
addition, black sportswriters were restricted in their access
to players and managers because they were denied membership
in the Baseball Writers Association -- and thus prohibited press
cards.

31. But Rodney and other Worker
sportswriters were members of the Baseball Writers Association.
"This was a magic pass onto the field," he said.50
His membership card gave him access to locker rooms, dugouts,
press boxes and the playing fields. He also ate and drank with
mainstream sportswriters, who may have agreed with him on integration
but could not or did not write about it. Rodney remembered sympathetic
sportswriters seeking him out with stories they could not report
in their newspapers: "I can't tell you how many times they
would say, 'Here's a little something. I can't use it, but I'd
love to see it in print.'"51

32. The beginning of World War II and the
grim reality of international politics cast a shadow on the CP's
cause. In fact, the instability in Europe affected the Worker's
sports pages. The anti-aggression pact between Germany and the
Soviet Union embarrassed and confused the U.S. Communist
Party and the Worker. American Communists had steadfastly
condemned fascism because it perpetuated racism -- and
now the Soviet Union was allied with the fascist government of
Germany. In reaction, the newspaper became less strident in its
editorials and articles.52

33. The Worker published stories on
the campaign to integrate baseball nearly every day during the
summer of 1939; however, it did not write as often about baseball
after the August 23 signing of the anti-aggression pact. When
it did, it followed awatered-down strategy: praising black ballplayers
and highlighting their achievements; quoting major league ballplayers
and managers who said that blacks belonged in the big leagues;
and urging fans to sign petitions and boycott ballparks. However,
Worker comparisons between Nazy Germany and U.S. Jim Crow
laws, once vivid features of the campaign, were not present from
August 1938 until June 1941.53

34. In January 1941, Rodney appealed to his
readers' sense of fairness. "Americans are sportsmen who
hate discrimination and phony equality," he said. "American
fandom is much bigger than the handful of reactionary magnates
and their stooge Judge Landis."54

35. The Worker had collectively
blamed Landis and team owners for perpetuating the color line,
but in the early 1940s it identified Landis as the person singularly
responsible for protecting segregation in baseball. In
1942, manager Leo Durocher said he would sign blacks if allowed.
Landis responded that there was no color line and never had been
in the two decades he had been commissioner.55 Other newspapers quoted Landis without
questioning him. But not the Worker. To Rodney, "Landis
was a blatant liar when he said there was no rule forbidding
black players in baseball."56

36. In December 1943, Landis agreed at the
annual owners' meeting to hear the arguments for signing black
players. The owners listened politely, then Landis ended the
discussion and the matter was closed. Landis was no doubt annoyed
that one of the speakers was Paul Robeson, the onetime All-American
football star turned opera singer, who was one of the most outspoken
communist sympathizers in the country. Baseball evidently could
reject integration simply because of communist involvement. New
York Yankee president and Sporting News editor J. G. Taylor Spink
referred to the Communists as agitators.57

37. Only a few mainstream columnists criticized
the color line in print; the rest maintained a conspiracy of
silence. Meanwhile, the Worker continued to cry foul and
went beyond its columns to end segregated baseball. During the
summer of 1943, sportswriter Nat Low persuaded Pittsburgh Pirates'
owner William Benswanger to give black stars Roy Campanella and
Dave Barnhill tryouts. Benswanger agreed, then abruptly canceled
the tryouts, citing unnamed "pressures."58 Two years later, the Worker and
the Courier contacted Isadore Muchnick, a socially progressive
councilman in Boston, who pressured the Red Sox into giving a
tryout to three black players, including Jackie Robinson. The
Red Sox gave the ballplayers a cursory look but nothing came
of it.

38. Ten days earlier, Low, a Worker photographer,
and People's Voice sportswriter Joe Bostic confronted
Branch Rickey at Brooklyn's spring training camp and demanded
that Rickey look at two black ballplayers. According to Rodney,
the reporters got nothing out of it except "Rickey's
cold rage."59 New York Journal-American sportswriter
Bill Roeder wrote that the presence of a Communist photographer
and sportswriter added "a sickening Red tinge."60
These abortive tryouts frustrated all involved. Yet they served
to publicize the color line, breaking the conspiracy of silence
that protected it.61

39. By the end of the war, Communists and
others who wanted to integrate baseball found that social attitudes
had begun to change, in large part because of World War II. After
fighting and dying in a war over racism, black soldiers returned
home and many demanded civil rights. New York City Councilman
Benjamin Davis, a Communist, distributed a leaflet that showed
two blacks -- one a soldier and the other a ballplayer. "Good
enough to die for his country, but not good enough for organized
baseball."62 In addition, the New York Legislature
passed the Quinn-Ives Act, which banned discrimination in hiring
and established a commission to investigate complaints, looking
first at New York City's three baseball teams.63

40. Rickey, who was as savvy as anyone
when it came to the politics of baseball, understood he could
either integrate baseball on his own terms or be forced to do
it on someone else's. Rickey secretly signed Robinson in late
August, then waited to drop his bombshell on baseball. Brooklyn's
top minor league team, the Montreal Royals, announced the
signing on October 23, 1945.

41. This was a new day for baseball and society
-- and the Worker praised itself and the Communist Party
for helping to bring it about. Once again, they reminded their
readers that they often had been the only daily newspaper to
raise the issue. The Worker added that it would not be
satisfied until there was no more segregation. "We must
crusade and fight for justice even if we are alone," Mike
Gold wrote. "We must never cease to be that 'nerve over
which oppression's pains are felt, otherwise unrecorded.' We
must keep on fighting until jim crow is ruined, finished, destroyed
in every dirty root and fibre."64 In his article, Gold praised Rodney in
particular for his role in ending segregation. "It was Lester
Rodney, then sports editor of the Daily Worker, who started
the campaign something like ten years ago," he wrote. "I
hope this victory will gladden the lonesome days of Lester Rodney
and make him remember that his life has been important in the
anti-fascist struggle. We owe a big bouquet to Lester Rodney."

42. The Worker sent Bill Mardo, the
newspaper's acting sports editor, to Florida to report on Robinson's
first spring training in white baseball. (Rodney was finishing
a four-year stint in the Army.) Communist and black sportswriters
clearly understood the historic importance of the spring training
of 1946; white sportswriters did not -- something Mardo clearly
pointed out to his readers.65 Only a few sportswriters covered Robinson's
first day of practice in Sanford, Florida, none from Florida
or elsewhere in the South. "I suppose some people and some
papers would need an atom bomb bursting about their heads,"
Mardo wrote, "before admitting that this world of ours does
move on."66

43. The Worker closely followed
Robinson's progress that spring and then during the regular season.
A year later, a few days before the beginning of the season,
Rodney and Mardo were in the Ebbets Field pressbox watching an
exhibition game between Brooklyn and Montreal. During the sixth
inning, another sportswriter tapped Mardo on the shoulder and
told him that Brooklyn had purchased Robinson from Montreal,
breaking major league baseball's color line. A couple New York
sportswriters approached Rodney and told him he could be proud
of that moment.67 In the next issue of the newspaper, Mardo
wrote: "There's time tomorrow to remember that the good
fight goes on. But, for today, let's just sit back and feel easy
and warm. As that fellow in the press box said: " 'Robinson's
a Dodger -- and it's a great day, isn't it?'"68

44. That day may have been delayed had it
had been for the DailyWorker. From 1936 until
1947, Worker sportswriters pounded away at the sense of
injustice, denial, and apathy that surrounded baseball; shamed
the sport into defending itself against racism; and educated
-- and even convinced -- many readers about the importance of
their crusade. They made enemies, too, and were dismissed or
criticized as "agitators." To some, like Sam Lacy,
the communists were fringe journalists, nuisances and obstructionists.
But we believe they deserve credit than that for their long campaign
to end Jim Crow in baseball. When asked to assess the impact
that the newspaper had on ending baseball's color ban, Mardo
answered, "I think it had a major effect."69 Rodney, on the other hand, was more specific.
"I'm not silly enough to think that it wasn't going to happen,"
he said. "I think we probably speeded up the process by
a few years."70

45. It is difficult, probably impossible,
to put the Worker's contribution in terms of years, months,
or weeks. One thing, however is clear: Communist Party sportswriters
shouted over the din of prejudice while the nation's mainstream
sportswriters remained silent, prolonging Jim Crow in baseball.
At the very least, they succeeded to a remarkable degree in informing
people of the existence and injustice of segregated baseball.71
But more than that, they helped end baseball's infamous
color line, and thereby furthered the long struggle against Jim
Crow.

1"Fans
Ask End of Jim Crow Baseball," Sunday Worker, 16
August 1936, 1. See Kelly Rusinack, "Baseball on the Radical
Agenda: The Daily and Sunday Worker on the Desegregation
of Major League Baseball, 1933 to 1947," master's thesis,
Clemson University, 1995, pp. 1-16.

13Fighting Words: Selections from Twenty-Five Years of the
Daily Worker (New York: New Century Publishers, 1949),
pp. xi, xiii.

14
Robert Klein, "Sports Reporting in New York City, 1946-1960,
by Two of the Era's Greatest and Most Influential Reporters --
Arthur Daley and Lester Rodney," Nine: AJournal
of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives 6(Fall
1997): 27.

Klein, Robert. "Sports Reporting in New York City, 1946-1960,
by Two of the Era's Greatest and Most Influential ReportersóArthur
Daley and Lester Rodney." Nine: A Journal of Baseball
History and Social Policy Perspectives 6 (Fall 1997).

Lamb, Chris. "'I Never Want to Take Another Trip Like
This One': Jackie Robinson's Journey to Integrate Baseball."
Journalof Sport History 24 (Summer 1997): 177-191.